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Thursday, September 03, 2009

GLENN GREENBERG ON ROB ZOMBIE'S HALLOWEEN 2

Glen Greenberg just wrote in with his brief assessment of Rob "I can't even direct a turd out of my own ass" Zombie's HALLOWEEN 2 and I'm glad he did because I refuse to ever again waste my time or cash on any movie that guy makes. (Well, at least until THE HAUNTED WORLD OF EL SUPERBEASTO comes out.) Here's what Glenn had to say:

With HALLOWEEN II, Rob Zombie proves once again that he can't write any characters who aren't white trash, beer-swilling, Lynyrd Skynyrd-loving rednecks. With the exception of Sheriff Brackett (played by Brad Dourif), there's not one truly likable character in this whole thing.

The murders are perfunctory, excessively brutal and cynical, and add nothing to the plot.

Zombie claims his Halloween movies don't involve the supernatural.I guess they don't-except for the moments where they do. For starters, Zombie's version of Michael Myers is superhumanly strong for some unknown reason.He has a keen homing sense that allows him to know where Laurie Strode is whenever he wants to.And there's a strange new element that Zombie introduces in this movie that bonds Michael even closer to Laurie, and that also gives Zombie the opportunity to give his wife, the underemployed Sheri Moon Zombie, another acting job-even though her character died in the previous film.

But what Zombie, as writer-director, is aiming for in terms of what he does with this new element is lost on me. I have no idea what he's trying to say. What he does with his wife's character in this film seems incongruous with how she was portrayed in the previous film-and even in the opening minutes of this sequel!

And then there's Zombie's version of Laurie Strode. In both of his Halloween films, Laurie is thoroughly unlikable and unsympathetic. You don't sympathize with her, you don't empathize with her, you don't root for her to survive and you don't care whether she dies. She's obnoxious, selfish, ditzy, and trashy (though apparently not a slut). Having recovered from the events of the first film, she's inscribed ugly, stupid-looking graffiti all over the walls of her bedroom and her bathroom, including a tribute to Alice Cooper (what is this, 1978?) and such charming images as "666" and a nice big pentagram. Oh--and she has a huge poster of CHARLES MANSON hanging above her bed. Very nice.

Come to think of it, there's one scene set at a book store in Haddonfield, Illinois, wherein Dr. Sam Loomis (once again played by Malcolm McDowell, which is very jarring, since Loomis DIED in the previous film!) is signing copies of his book about his experiences with Michael Myers. There's a long line of customers waiting for him to sign their books. Based on the way Zombie has portrayed the majority of the people of Haddonfield in these two movies, I'm surprised that these shit-kickin' shitheads can even READ a book, let alone that they would ever BUY one.

The ending of the movie would have probably been more interesting if I hadn't already seen one of the better sequels to the original John Carpenter film (I won't say which one, in case you actually want to see this and you don't want any spoilers).

Bottom line: The film's a piece of crap. And yet, believe it or not, it's actually a step up from the previous one!

Nice smackdown of the Zomb, Glenn! I haven't seen any of his films, due to my being a wuss about all that yucky blood and stuff. But I always guessed they had to be a lot like his music: the revivified corpse of too many nerdy influences. Energetically twitching on the slab as he pumps current into it, but lacking the spark of inspiration that would give the creature a life of its own.